Tinkering around with Directx 11, Romanian developer Silviu Andrei is building an engine capable of rendering not corridors, or arenas, but entire planets.
Similar to the Outerra project that we've featured previously, Andrei not only has a very nice ocean up and splashing, but seamless travel between space and the planet's surface.
While there's the argument things won't look so nice or smooth once you have to get an actual game running on it, that's not the point. We're here to look at a pretty engine, and that's exactly what we're going to do.
The gallery above shows off Andrei's planetary chops from a few angles, like showing a spacecraft entering from orbit and close-ups of the ocean. Those of a technical persuasion should head to his YouTube page, where he goes into great detail in the comments section as to how everything was done and how it's shaping up.
Directx 11 porting & other changes [Silviu Andrei, thanks Tales of a Prinny!]